


Ren'ai

by mrsskeptic



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Episode: s03e17 Pusher, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Panic Attacks, Soulmates, i've just been a stinkie rper and became lazy DFSKJGDFSK, this is my first fic in FIVE YEARS no joke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-10-21 15:36:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20695922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrsskeptic/pseuds/mrsskeptic
Summary: 恋愛 (Ren'ai). English Translations: Love, passion, affections, emotions, love-making.Or the time where Scully saved Mulder from himself.Takes place within Season 3, Episode 17: Pusher, promptly after Mulder shoots Modell.





	Ren'ai

The echo of the gunshot still rings in Dana’s ears. It worms its way past the fire alarm that croons throughout the hospital, the smell of gunsmoke raising around the bodies that move in and out of the room at ease. This is the diorama in motion: Modell’s body -- limp, hand haphazardly over the wound -- carted out by physicians with eyes as wide as dimes, his blood smeared out in swatches across the linoleum. The SWAT team, guns still at the ready, line up along the halls like toy soldiers plucked straight from the box. None of them exist in Scully’s vision. It’s as if she’s pressed pause on the tape to weave her way around the sprouted frames of men taking up too much space, time pulled to a standstill. Still, she wades through the crowd as thick as water, her heart set on searching for one thing. One thing only.

And it’s Mulder -- _ always Mulder _ \-- she finds, his back against the farthest corner of the room like a cow hiding from the hands of slaughter.

“Mulder…”

His name alone kickstarts the scene once again. He doesn’t even look at her. His eyes never leave the hole he carved out into Modell’s head as he trails out past Dana, following the pack of doctors that tote him down the hall. She’s quick at his heels, reaching out a hand to grab his forearm. “Mulder, stop.” She calls out, but he tears his arm from her with such force it momentarily stops her in her tracks.

“No, I -- He’s still alive, Scully, I can feel it.” His words spit like a frenzy from his lips, as if an itching sore burst from the back of his throat, “I gotta make sure he doesn’t get his hands on anyone else.”

“I need you to _ sit down _. You’re in shock. I need to take a look at you, make sure that -- Dammit, Mulder, enough!” This time her grip tightens around his wrist as she turns him to face her. He’s cold, clammy, but his skin still burns against hers. (It somehow always does.) “You’re not God! Even if you followed them every step of the way, there’s nothing you could do to stop Modell from where he’s heading. You’re not thinking clearly, I … I need you to let me do an examination.”

The mania with which he answered before had suddenly all but left him, stepping outside of his body and leaving a husk of a man sinking his feet into the floor. There was no spirit left in him but the reclamation of self, a slow rebuilding that possesses him from the head-down. He can only nod in reply as he reluctantly let Scully lead him into an empty room, shutting the door behind them. There’s immediate tension built between the four walls, Mulder roaming in front of her with his head down like a child in trouble. She watches him for a moment with her hand still on the doorknob, concern rolling off of her in waves, before she drops her arm to her side and makes her way past him.

“Take a seat on the bed. I’m going to try and find something to cover you up.”

She slips into the role of a doctor like it’s a second skin, digging through the cupboards as if she had any right to. The hospital had it’s reserves, sure, but luckily she finds exactly what she’s looking for: a small dixie cup, a raggedy blanket, and a sterile-white piece of cloth. “Here, wrap this around you.” She says to him, settling the blanket across his broad shoulders before turning back to the sink. She wets the rag and fills the cup before returning to his stooped frame. He takes the water and downs it without any hesitation, crumpling the paper in his hand and throwing it across the room with abandon. A deep sigh heaves from the depths of Dana’s stomach as the quiet of the room begins to overtake her.

_ Not only ten minutes ago, Mulder had held that gun. Had _ pointed _ it at her. His eyes -- kind eyes, lost eyes, eyes that had seen the world and wanted to keep on seeing -- so full of a resolute ending that nothing made more sense than to pull the trigger. _

_ My god, _ she thinks, and it hits her like a knife to the gut, sharp and jagged and bleeding, _ he would’ve killed me. _

The water from the rag dribbles down her arm past her sleeve, and she realizes she's wrung it in her fist. 

Clearing her throat she takes a step towards him once again, raising the cloth to his forehead to cool his fervor. He flinches at the touch so quick it makes Dana reel her hand back in return, and the both of them seem so stunned by the distance that it swallows them whole. But soon the moment passes, and she finds herself closer to him once more, pressing it to his temple, his cheek, to the smooth curve of his jaw.

Minutes pass by like this, the only sounds between them their soft, unsynced breaths and the muffled noise of a hospital trying to return to its roots outside the door. She watches the knots slowly start to unravel in Mulder’s posture, though the tension strung up his spine remains. He sits as stiff as a corpse with his legs dangling off the bed, limbs locked in front of him. And then, unexpectedly, he raises shaking fingers to the back of Dana’s hand, smoothing calloused fingertips over her knuckles. The uncaught tenderness of it sends a chill up her spine, even as his touch presses embers into her skin. (Another burning.)

“I don’t -- Scully, I wasn’t… ” It was his turn to sigh, the words sticking behind his teeth. With his face turned towards the ground, Dana realizes he hasn’t made eye contact with her since they had a loaded barrel between them. She kneels down so they’re face-to-face, just mere inches away from each other.  
  
“Look at me. Mulder, _ look at me _ . Alright?” His eyes roam upwards but still don’t meet her own, tracing the outline of her in an almost-illusory fog, as if she’s bleeding into the background. Dana takes the moment to inspect him as well. He trembles on the bedside uncharacteristically, his shirt drenched in sweat, his open fists shaking on top of his thighs. “Take my hands.” She says, setting the cloth aside. When he doesn’t move she does it for him, pressing her small palms into his own. He clings to her with the strength of the dying. All at once Dana remembers sitting by the bedside of her grandfather in his final days, the ones where he came in and out of the memory of them. _ Grandad _ , she called him, _ Grandad, it’s me, Dana, _ and though he could never bring her name to his tongue he held her tiny hand in his bony one: tight, too tight, so tight it hurt. Mulder holds her hands the same way -- as if there were an inevitable unknown to fear, yet to come.

“I tried so hard to fight it.” He cuts the silence in half, “It was like he was _ right there _, in my head. I-I wasn't kicked out entirely, y’know, but it wasn’t my call.”

She squeezes his hands in affirmation, her thumbs tracing lines into his skin. “You _ did _ fight it. There was no try. Modell had your file, he -- he knew who you were, _ knew _ what he was up against. I don’t think it was this _ grand battle _ he had planned so much as it was a… A last hurrah. His last chance at making himself mightier than he was.

“Now, I know who you are. I know that wasn’t you. In the last three years, I’ve been a witness to the unbelievable; things that have tested my faith, my surety in science. I’ve followed you across the country, across continents, in search of the very same truth you yourself are after. We don’t always come to a similar conclusion, but Mulder, one thing is for certain. I may not believe in the same circumstances you do, but I _ do _ believe in you.”

And then finally, _ finally _, his gaze meets her own, and the world stops turning. This is a moment for when the planets perfectly align, every star dancing in the sky to the drums pounding in their chests. His eyes meet hers and they meet his and time meets them and they meet time, until Dana is so sure that they are one, one breath, one person, their hands a bridge between their hearts. “Scully…” He starts, and it’s soft, new, a crack in the shell, “I --”

It’s at that precise moment that SWAT Lieutenant Cross swings open the door, and their hands break apart in immediate warning. He seems to recognize what he’s done even before he speaks. “...Hey, sorry, they were just lookin’ for you. Modell’s in surgery. It’s critical. Doc’s not sure if he’s gonna make it.” His eyes dance between the two of them before focusing on Mulder, who shifts under the blanket with an uncomfortable cough as he continues, “Do you, uh, need a minute?”

Scully moves her mouth to speak, to tell the man that yes, they could, in fact, use a minute, but her partner stands and interrupts before she gets the chance. “No. No, we’ll be right there.”

The other arches his brow as he shuts the door behind him, leaving the two of them alone once again with very little space between them. Dana chances a glance up at him as she draws up, taking in a breath before darting her gaze down, finding a _ sudden interest _ in her nails. “You know, Mulder, as your _ doctor _, I really think you ought to take some time for yourself. Maybe lay down a bit, at least until things smooth over. ”

He lets a chuckle fall out from an upturned corner of his lip, genuine, smooth. It’s as if the last fifteen minutes had never happened, as if it were a dream they both shared in passing. “Scully, are you trying to get me into bed?”

She allows the cool breadth of her smile to grace her features. “You sure know how to read a woman’s mind.”

And just like that, the heaviness has lifted. The air is gentle, fragile now, as he slowly steps back from her and towards the door. She replaces him at the bedside to fold the blanket, her mind stretching out to a thousand different places to reach the corners of the room.

“Hey.”

She cants her chin up towards his voice to find him standing in the open doorway, staring at her. _ There’s always something unsaid here _. There’s always words making a home out of their mouths, always sitting just out of reach. Like any moment the both of them could start talking and never stop.

But sometimes… Sometimes, the right things don’t need to be said. _ You just know. _

“Thanks.”

She nods in reply.

The door closes behind him and Dana’s left in the room alone, blanket in hand and thoughts spilling out onto the floor. Her heart makes a mess of her, radiating clear through to her fingertips. Where before there were embers there’s a whole fire setting her alight, turning her face the same brilliant shade as her hair. Because there's Mulder, there’s _ always Mulder _ , sitting in the back of her head, knocking on her skull. Making her do things she’d never imagine doing for anyone else, feeling things unfelt before. _ Hey Scully, _ the Mulder in her head says, _ I've got something to tell you. _

And she thinks she can understand how he felt.

**Author's Note:**

> Imagine taking five years to write another actual fic. The last one being a GLEE FANFIC KDFSJGSFDKJ but of COURSE I'd come back strong with MSR.
> 
> I'd been sitting with this fic idea for awhile and thought I'd finally put the thought to good use! No matter what I'm pretty proud of the fact that I even finished it. Go productivity!


End file.
